Field Techniques-Primates

Expedition Field Techniques PRIMATES by Adrian Barnett Geography Outdoors: the centre supporting field research, exploration and outdoor learning Royal Geographical Society with IBG 1 Kensington Gore London SW7 2AR Tel +44 (0)20 7591 3030 Fax +44 (0)20 7591 3031 Email [email protected] Website www.rgs.org/go November 1995 ISBN 978-0-907649-69-4 Front cover illustration: Line drawing by Madeleine Prangley of West African Cercopithecus - Diana monkeys Expedition Field Techniques PRIMATES CONTENTS Acknowledgements Introduction Why primates? Section One: What you can do - Part one: simple stuff 1 1.1 Species inventory of a primate community 1 1.2 Single species studies 1 1.3 Comparison of communities in different habitats 2 1.4 Records of group size 4 1.5 Diet 5 1.6 Group composition 7 1.7 Range size 7 1.8 Rare or common in an area? 8 1.9 Effects of hunting 9 1.10 Geographical boundaries 9 1.11 Tourism and ecotourism impacts 12 1.12 What data to take 12 1.12.1 Examples of data needed on a daily basis 12 1.12.2 Recording oddities 13 Section Two: What you can do - Part two: more detailed stuff 15 2.1 Calls and vocalizations 15 2.1.1 Recording calls (for own sake) 15 2.1.2 Recording calls for later analysis 16 2.1.3 Other possible work with calls 17 2.2 Faeces 17 2.2.1 Faecal analysis (food) 18 2.2.2 Faecal analysis (endoparasites) 18 2.2.3 Faeces ecology 19 2.3 Associations with other species 21 2.4 Carnivory in primates 22 2.5 Pennies from heaven 22 Expedition Field Techniques Section Three: Inappropriate topics 23 3.1 What you probably can’t do 23 3.2 What you should never do 25 Section Four: Field methods 27 4.1 Transects and trails 27 4.1.2 Line transect sampling 32 4.2 Observation 32 4.2.1 Preliminaries 32 4.2.2 Recording data 34 4.2.3 Guarding against between-observer variation 35 4.2.4 Identifying individuals 35 4.3 Other methods 36 4.3.1 Middens 36 4.3.2 Souvenir shops 37 4.3.3 Markets 37 4.3.4 Interviewing local people 38 4.3.5 Collecting plant material 41 4.4 Vegetation surveys 42 4.4.1 Role of vegetation surveys 42 4.4.2 Classifying vegetation types and format 42 4.4.3 Phenology 46 4.5 Safety 46 4.6 Medical aspects 47 Section Five: Miscellaneous hints 51 Section Six: Pre-fieldwork preparation 53 Section Seven: Equipment 56 7.1 Field 56 7.1.1 Data gathering equipment 56 7.1.2 Collecting equipment 59 7.1.3 Sound-recording equipment 60 7.2 Equipment recommendations (base) 60 7.2.1 Preserving optics 60 7.2.2 Preserving film 60 7.2.3 Preserving tapes and tape recorders 61 7.2.4 Keeping notes (and making multiple copies) 61 7.3 Labelling and storing specimens 61 7.4 Publications 62 Section Eight: Appendices 64 Section Nine: References 85 Acknowledgements Many people helped with this book, sharing experiences, opinions and fieldwork, too many to list (so if I miss you out, I’m sorry). I would, though, especially like to thank Madeleine Prangley (for patience and artwork), Alexia da Cunha, John Dutton, Mark van Roosmalen, and also David Chivers, Ymke Warren, Alfredo Cuaron, Mauro Galetti and Atul Gupta for their additional comments. The library staff at The Zoological Society of London, Natural History Museum and Science Reference Library were all exceedingly helpful. Deborah Boys at the Expedition Advisory Centre demonstrated amazing patience in dealing with delays and semi-legible modifications. Finally, I would like to thank the Royal Geographical Society, Fauna & Flora International and British Ecological Society for funding many of the expeditions which gave me the experience on which to write this book. This book is dedicated to the late Warren G Kinzey, a great primatologist, and to Alexia da Cunha who introduced me to monkeys. Introduction1 This handbook has been written with undergraduate and post-graduate students in mind. It is intended as a guide for people who have little or no previous experience of primatological fieldwork. There is a UK bias for such things as sources of information. This is unavoidable, given the available space, time and resources. It is hoped that advice will at least help non-UK residents in their preparations. With the exception of gibbons, working with apes is outside the scope of most expeditions. Consequently, techniques for studying great apes are not dealt with here. Expeditioners are, by and large, an innovative lot and new field techniques are devised on many expeditions. But we need to hear about them to incorporate them into future editions of this manual. So if you have a good idea please send it care of Geography Outdoors - things won’t get better without you. 1 Though a few species of primates occur in temperate zones, the majority occur in the tropics (very loosely between the tropics of Cancer and Capricorn). Comments in this publication are generally intended for such species. Expedition Field Techniques Why Primates? Studies of primates can either be the main reason for your expedition or one theme of your fieldwork. There are several good reasons for including primates in your study: • Most primates are diurnal, vocal and group-living. This means that, of all the mammal groups you are likely to encounter, primates are probably the ones you are most likely to see and/or hear on a regular basis and with sufficient clarity to be able to make positive and verifiable identifications. Also though there are exceptions (see Section 1.10), primates are generally well known taxonomically and biogeographically. This greatly helps with field identifications. • primates are popular animals and are of general interest. They tend to be included in field guides (generally unlike rodents, bats and quite a lot of small carnivores). This too aids identification. • in general (see Section 1.9 for some exceptions), primates are good indicators of general ecosystem health and are thus helpful in conservation planning. • enough work has been done for it to be generally quite clear what kind of questions fieldwork could be answering. Often these can be of a very basic nature. Data such as group size, food and habitat preferences are still needed for whole species or for certain parts of their range. Gathering such data is well within the compass of an expedition. • studies on primates can be integrated with other fieldwork - for example observations on birds and studies of fruiting and flowering patterns of trees. It is therefore a good way of making the most of the effort you spend on fieldwork. • people are interested in primates. This includes sponsors, the media and local government officials. Searching for a rare monkey is widely regarded as a much saner (and more supportable) pastime than trying to locate a rare slug. • there are a large number of journals specializing in primates, and well- structured ways of accessing the information they contain. This simplifies your literature search, and it also means that there is a good chance of being able to find somewhere to get your results published. (such journals are listed in the appendices). Bourliere (1985) has reviewed the role of primates in tropical ecosystems. Section One WHAT YOU CAN DO - PART ONE: SIMPLE STUFF The following is intended as a guide to fieldwork themes, either for expeditions who are not concentrating solely on primates, do not feel they have a great deal of field experience or who are not going to be in any one place for a long period of time. Each or any of these can be done for one species of primate or as many species of the primate community as time, logistics and equipment will allow. If some of this stuff looks basic, then a quick glance through the literature will show you that fundamental information is still lacking for even some quite familiar species. 1.1 Species inventory of a primate community There’s nothing wrong with a simple list of what you saw. If you can assign relative abundances to the various species, so much the better (see Section 4.1 for quantitative indices). In a well-studied area comparison of such data with that from previous years can help assess the effect of disturbance (such as hunting, logging, road construction, eco-tourism). In little-studied areas it may be all there is to go on (see Agoramoorthy, 1989; Barnett & da Cunha, 1991; Buchanan-Smith, 1991a,b; Cameron et al., 1989; Carpaneto & Gippoliti, 1990; Chivers & Burton, 1988; Choudhury, 1988; Christen & Geissmann, 1994; Kinzey et al., 1988; Martins et al., 1988; Mitani, 1990; Peres, 1993a; Prangley et al., 1994; Raxworthy & Stephenson, 1988; Rylands et al., 1988 as examples). It is important to be absolutely sure of what you have seen. You should be familiar with the likely species from your pre-expedition researches (see Section 6) and from the field guides (see Appendix) and the photographs you have bought with you (see section 4.3.5). Sections 4.1, 4.2 and 4.3 give some tips of how to find and observe monkeys in the field. 1.2. Single species studies The usual motivation for these is because the species is rare, little known or threatened. Ensure that the time and effort devoted to the study are enough to ensure its representativeness and the validity of its conclusions. Good examples of such conservation-focused studies include Alfred & Sati (1990), Burton et al.

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